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<blockquote data-quote="Ziggy" data-source="post: 210440" data-attributes="member: 148">I'm got mixed feeling about Ars Magica.The setting is brilliant, and I've seen no other RPG that come even close to Ars Magica for magic centered campaigns.OTOH the system breaks down in a couple of places:- The spontanous magic system is *too* flexible. When everybody gets a decent score in most Arts and Techniques, difficult situations tend to bog down while everybody flips frantically through the book trying to solve the situation using different spontanous combinations. As the power of the different combinations are unique, this tends to take a long time before we can resolve whether the desired effect is within the powers of the mage.&nbsp; A more limited system would have negated this effect. - The system promotes studying too much. While this ties into the &quot;covenant&quot; style of playing, there really is too few incentives to do anything else than study, and there is a limit to how many times you can threathen the covenant in order to make the bookworms look up from their tomes. - The combat system has a few flaws, but that didn't bother up too much.The most successful campaign I've DM'ed was a campagn set deep in the woods of Russia. The focus was to build a new covenant, and most of the mages were nature-oriented (Herbam and Animal). The setting made them focus on survival and exploration, thus minimazing the &quot;book-keeping&quot; previous campaign often devolved into. .Ziggy</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ziggy, post: 210440, member: 148"] I'm got mixed feeling about Ars Magica. The setting is brilliant, and I've seen no other RPG that come even close to Ars Magica for magic centered campaigns. OTOH the system breaks down in a couple of places: - The spontanous magic system is *too* flexible. When everybody gets a decent score in most Arts and Techniques, difficult situations tend to bog down while everybody flips frantically through the book trying to solve the situation using different spontanous combinations. As the power of the different combinations are unique, this tends to take a long time before we can resolve whether the desired effect is within the powers of the mage. A more limited system would have negated this effect. - The system promotes studying too much. While this ties into the "covenant" style of playing, there really is too few incentives to do anything else than study, and there is a limit to how many times you can threathen the covenant in order to make the bookworms look up from their tomes. - The combat system has a few flaws, but that didn't bother up too much. The most successful campaign I've DM'ed was a campagn set deep in the woods of Russia. The focus was to build a new covenant, and most of the mages were nature-oriented (Herbam and Animal). The setting made them focus on survival and exploration, thus minimazing the "book-keeping" previous campaign often devolved into. .Ziggy [/QUOTE]

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